第23章

I find that gardening has unsurpassed advantages for the study of natural history; and some scientific facts have come under my own observation, which cannot fail to interest naturalists and un-naturalists in about the same degree.Much, for instance, has been written about the toad, an animal without which no garden would be complete.But little account has been made of his value: the beauty of his eye alone has been dwelt on; and little has been said of his mouth, and its important function as a fly and bug trap.His habits, and even his origin, have been misunderstood.Why, as an illustration, are toads so plenty after a thunder-shower? All my life long, no one has been able to answer me that question.Why, after a heavy shower, and in the midst of it, do such multitudes of toads, especially little ones, hop about on the gravel-walks? For many years, I believed that they rained down; and I suppose many people think so still.They are so small, and they come in such numbers only in the shower, that the supposition is not a violent one."Thick as toads after a shower," is one of our best proverbs.

I asked an explanation 'of this of a thoughtful woman,--indeed, a leader in the great movement to have all the toads hop in any direction, without any distinction of sex or religion.Her reply was, that the toads come out during the shower to get water.This, however, is not the fact.I have discovered that they come out not to get water.I deluged a dry flower-bed, the other night, with pailful after pailful of water.Instantly the toads came out of their holes in the dirt, by tens and twenties and fifties, to escape death by drowning.The big ones fled away in a ridiculous streak of hopping; and the little ones sprang about in the wildest confusion.

The toad is just like any other land animal: when his house is full of water, he quits it.These facts, with the drawings of the water and the toads, are at the service of the distinguished scientists of Albany in New York, who were so much impressed by the Cardiff Giant.

The domestic cow is another animal whose ways I have a chance to study, and also to obliterate in the garden.One of my neighbors has a cow, but no land; and he seems desirous to pasture her on the surface of the land of other people: a very reasonable desire.The man proposed that he should be allowed to cut the grass from my grounds for his cow.I knew the cow, having often had her in my garden; knew her gait and the size of her feet, which struck me as a little large for the size of the body.Having no cow myself, but acquaintance with my neighbor's, I told him that I thought it would be fair for him to have the grass.He was, therefore, to keep the grass nicely cut, and to keep his cow at home.I waited some time after the grass needed cutting; and, as my neighbor did not appear, Ihired it cut.No sooner was it done than he promptly appeared, and raked up most of it, and carried it away.He had evidently been waiting that opportunity.When the grass grew again, the neighbor did not appear with his scythe; but one morning I found the cow tethered on the sward, hitched near the clothes-horse, a short distance from the house.This seemed to be the man's idea of the best way to cut the grass.I disliked to have the cow there, because I knew her inclination to pull up the stake, and transfer her field of mowing to the garden, but especially because of her voice.She has the most melancholy "moo" I ever heard.It is like the wail of one uninfallible, excommunicated, and lost.It is a most distressing perpetual reminder of the brevity of life and the shortness of feed.

It is unpleasant to the family.We sometimes hear it in the middle of the night, breaking the silence like a suggestion of coming calamity.It is as bad as the howling of a dog at a funeral.